Food patties of various kinds, including hamburgers, molded “steaks”, fish cakes, chicken patties, pork patties, potato patties, and others, are frequently formed in high-volume automated food patty molding machines. Food patty molding machines are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,887,964; 4,054,967, and 4,182,003.
An apparatus for molding food patties that have essentially uniform texture and minimal shrinkage when cooked is disclosed in Sandberg et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,356,595. The patties also hold their shape consistently after cooking. The apparatus includes a multi-orifice plate interposed in the outlet end of a fill passage extending from a food pump to a cyclically reciprocating mold plate. The food pump is preferably controlled so that the maximum fill pressure, desirable for consistent filling of the mold cavities, is used for only a limited part of each mold plate cycle.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,862,330 to Hansen provides a food patty molding machine having a mold plate having at least one mold cavity therein. A mold plate drive is connected to the mold plate for driving the mold plate along a given path, in a repetitive cycle, between a fill position and a discharge position. A food pump is provided for pumping a moldable food product through a fill passage connecting the food pump to the mold cavity when the mold plate is in its fill position. A fill plate, interposed in the fill passage immediately adjacent the mold plate, has a multiplicity of fill orifices distributed in a predetermined pattern throughout an area aligned with the mold cavity when the mold plate is in its fill position. The fill orifices define paths through the fill plate, wherein some of the paths each have a path portion that is obliquely angled to a fill side face of the mold plate.